Efforts to improve surgical devices, particularly those devices that are typically intended as single use devices (e.g. devices for use on one patient in one procedure, devices not intended for reprocessing after its initial use) have been the pursuit of portions of the medical device industry for decades. These single use devices typically are lower cost than those that are intended to be reprocessed and reused, and are generally designed for a low number of cycles. The devices are specifically marked and approved by local governmental agencies (e.g. FDA) for single use. In some instances, it has been found that some users try to reprocess (e.g. re-sterilize, typically via heating) the device for use with multiple patients, using them for what may be known as “off label” usage. In order to prevent such off label usage, it may be desirable to design devices that that include a mechanism to prevent reprocessing, or at least prevent effective usage of the device after reprocessing or after a set amount of use. Past innovations that have attempted to solve this particular problem have typically been drawn to methods of locking electronic circuits or blocking mechanisms and not as to the innovative manner as in the present teachings disclosed herein.
Examples of single use devices are found in the following patent documents: U.S. Pat. Nos. 8,652,134; 7,690,231; 5,149,322; 6,843,014; 5,946,840; 7,255,263; and WO/1998/037819; all of which are expressly incorporated herein by reference for all purposes and particularly for teachings on preventing effective usage of the device after reprocessing or after use.
It would be desirable to have a device that includes one or more anti-reuse devices or features that allow one or more parts of the device to fall apart upon heating of the device. What is needed is a transformation member (e.g., an anti-reuse device) that is a pivot pin, joint, track, channel, slider, axis, or a combination thereof that upon heating ceases to hold two or more parts together.